Coffee and Kick Ass

- According to the Ohio Athletic Commission, WEC 47: Bowles vs. Cruz drew a live attendance of 8,700 and a gate of $401,000. The commission also announced that Brian Bowles, Dominick Cruz, Joseph Benavidez, Javier Vazquez, L.C. Davis, and Bart Palaszewski all passed their post-fight drug tests. [MMAWeekly.com]

- UFC veteran Alex Karalexis will battle Anthony Pettis in a lightweight affair at WEC 48: Aldo vs. Faber. Karalexis and Pettis were originally slated to fight at WEC 43 but the fight was scrapped due to an injury. WEC 48 will mark the promotions first foray on pay-per-view as they showcase a world class card that includes Jose Aldo vs. Urijah Faber, Benson Henderson vs. Donald Cerrone, and Mike Brown vs. Manvel Gamburyan. [Sherdog.com]

- The Ultimate Fighter 1 veteran Alex Karalexis has suffered an injury that will prevent him from fighting Anthony Pettis at the upcoming WEC: Cerrone vs. Henderson bout in Youngstown, Ohio. [WEC]

- Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos was forced to withdraw from his upcoming bout with former U.S. Special Forces operative Tim Kennedy after he suffered a knee injury while training for the September 25 bout. [The Fight Network]

- UFC Fight Night 19 took a hit today when lightweight Kyle Bradley was forced to withdraw from his bout with Sam Stout after suffering an injury during training. No replacement for Stout has been announced. [MMA Junkie]

WEC has announced that their next event following tomorrow night’s show will take place in San Diego on January 25, 2009.

World Extreme Cagefighting® today announced that for the first event of 2009, the cage will head west to the hotbed of mixed martial arts - California - to hold the first ever WEC® event in San Diego. Two blockbuster matchups will lead the main card, with the World Lightweight Championship fight between Jamie Varner and undefeated Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone as the main event, and the mega-rematch pitting Urijah Faber against Jens Pulver in the co-main event. World Extreme Cagefighting, featuring Varner vs. Cerrone and Faber vs. Pulver 2, takes place live from the San Diego Sports Arena on Sunday, January 25, 2009.

World Victory Road announced Friday that heavyweight Antonio Silva is set to compete on the Sengoku No Ran show on January 4, 2009. His opponent is scheduled to be Yoshihiro Nakao. Silva, the current EliteXC heavyweight title holder, is currently under suspension in the US due to a failed steroid test in California. Silva has disputed the results of the testing and since Japanese promotions are not compelled to honor suspensions in the US, he will compete here. It may have long term effects on his obtaining licensure in the future in the US, but Vitor Belfort may have set a precendent by being allowed to compete after fighting in England while under steroid suspension.

Jorge Gurgel and Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou are among the recent cuts from the UFC roster. Both were involved in losses in their last fight within the octagon.

Gurgel never fails to give a wild performance, such as the one against Aaron Riley that garnered him Fight of the Night honors at UFC 91. But more often than not, he has come out on the losing end, having lost three of his last 4 fights. He has been widely criticized for not utilizing his BJJ Black Belt skills more and instead choosing to stand and trade with his opponents. Gurgel will not be out of work long as he has already signed an exclusive contract with the Strikeforce promotion. In the end, it would not surprise me if Zuffa didn’t help get him signed right away. His time in the UFC was clearly up and yet he was a real favorite of Dana White’s. A demotion to WEC would be seen as just that while also inadvertantly degrading the WEC’s lightweight class.

The number one reason for Griffin not winning - and notice it’s not written Jackson winning or even Griffin losing - is that “you have to beat the champ”, a quote from Jackson’s coach Juanito Ibarra, some fighters, and even readers of this site. The concept is well understood, but scoring systems don’t change for championship fights and champions don’t get awarded bonus points (although we’ve all seen some fights where it seemed like they were). The UFC does increase the number of rounds for a title fight, but that’s the lone rules change, and no scoring changes come along with that. Dave Meltzer of Yahoo! Sports has similar thoughts.

Payouts

Griffin’s win made him the highest paid fighter of the night according to MMA Weekly. The $150k win bonus helped him top former champ Rampage. The two also were awarded fight of the night bonuses of $60k. The third highest paid fighter wasn’t even on the main card. Gabriel Gonzaga, who defeated Justin McCully on the preliminary card, received $100k with the win bonus.

With the upcoming UFC Light Heavyweight Championship match between Rampage Jackson and Forrest Griffin on tap for this weekend, some interesting tidbits from the UFC have started to surface. Let’s get to them.

Franklin to 205?

Ever since being handled easily for a second time by middleweight champion, Anderson Silva, there has been speculation on what would be next for former champion Rich Franklin. Many figured Rich would move to light heavyweight, a weight class he had competed in before, including in the UFC. Our great friend Ariel Helwani at MMARated have disclosed that Rich will indeed be moving up. But even more interesting is the bout set for him, that being Matt Hamill of TUF 3 fame.

The bout is set for UFC 88 at the Phillips Arena in Atlanta, GA on September 6, 2008. It will likely be the co-main event just under the headline bout between Chuck Liddell and Rashad Evans.

Jesse Taylor is back

Continuing on the rumored matchups, it appears that Jesse Taylor’s firing from the Ultimate Fighter will not be for long. MMAJunkie has confirmed with both fight camps that Taylor will face the man who replaced him in the TUF 7 Finale fight, CB Dollaway, The fight will take place at this months UFN 14 card, set to broadcast live on SpikeTV on July 19, 2008.

Taylor gained a good deal of press for all the wrong reasons when he became the first TUF finalist to be thrown off the show after he qualified for the Finale. Taylor, in a drunken stupor, was seen via video tape kicking the window out of a limo and being verbally combative in various Las Vegas casinos via security video. UFC President Dana White threw Taylor off the show after the completion of tapings. Semi final losers CB Dollaway and Tim Credeur then fought with Dollaway advancing to the finals where he lost to Amir Sadollah for a second time.

This card is significant in that it is being televised in direct competition to the Affliction PPV card featuring Fedor Emelianenko vs Tim Sylvia. At this point the UFN 14 card look like this:

- Nick Diaz will be fighting Thomas Denny on the next CBS EliteXC event (July 26). Let me translate that to how everyone reads it: Diaz isn’t fighting KJ Noons, or even Hayato Sakurai, and that’s just disappointing.

- We’ll probably see Dan Henderson vs Rousimar Palhares at UFC 88 (Sep 6). The fight will be at 185, instead of Henderson’s prefered 205. Six of eight of Palhares’ wins have come by submission, including the Submission of the Night at UFC 84 over Ivan Salaverry. It should be a good card with Chuck Liddell vs TUF 2 champ Rashad Evans.

On Saturday night, Kaitlin Young put on a great performance against Gina Carano in EliteXC Primetime debut on CBS. The fight was stopped between the second and third rounds and it was announced that the ringside doctor had recommended the stoppage. In a post to the FighterGirls website, Kaitlin Young disagrees, giving a detailed perspective of how the fight was stopped and raising an interesting accusation.

My left cheek and area surrounding the eye are looking pretty ugly today, but there was no major damage. Though it may have looked like it on tv, I never actually had an open wound.

What you didn’t see was that the doctor actually cleared me to fight the third round but the commission said “no”. I wanted to continue, my corner wanted to continue. The cut likely would have opened in the third but it was under the eye. If I had to guess, I would say that they didn’t want the visual of a woman with a bloody face on CBS.

They also chose not to do a post fight interview with me or to include me in the post fight news conference and after party. I think the reason for that was my beat up appearance after the fight because I was not seriously injured and was completely coherent.

I am very disappointed about that but cant help but wonder how people would have responded to that, as stupid as it is.

Yeah, I have to agree. I think if people were shocked or upset by the look of it they may have been put at ease a bit by seeing that I was okay. I think some people probably assumed the worst because I basically disappeared from the camera after the fight.

I’m not trying to be one of those people “Well, I would have won if they had let it go into the third round so it wasn’t my fault. Yada yada yada….” Gina was obviously getting the better of me at that point in the fight, but I wasn’t ready to be done. It really bothers me that I didn’t get a chance to thank my sponsors and all that jazz.

Sounds pretty fishy. When the fight was stopped, they had a close up of Kaitlin’s face. I said right away that fight would not have been stopped if it was a male. Apparently, there may have been a good amount of truth to it. And shame on EliteXC for not even allowing Kaitlin to attend the post fight press conference.

More Fallout from EliteXC Primetime

Our friends at MMARated have posted a video from the post fight press conference featuring EliteXC President of Live Events Gary Shaw and heavyweight James Thompson. In a comical moment, Gary Shaw relays the fact that thompson was having difficulties breathing and was being transported to the hospital. Shaw then asks for everyone’s prayers for Thompson. Meanwhile, Thompson is standing in the middle of the press conference drinking a bottle of water! Check out the video after the jump.

Former WEC light heavyweight champion Doug Marshall has reportedly signed a one-fight contract with the California-based Palace Fighting Championship and will fight at the promotion’s next scheduled event on July 18th according to the to the Visalia Times-Delta. Five Ounces of Pain was the first to make the find.

PFC President Christian Printup stated in the article that Marshall remains under contract with Zuffa and was given permission to seek a fight in a smaller show to help bounce back from his recent knockout loss to Brian Stann in March, a loss that cost Marshall his title with the organization.

The fight in July will be Marshall’s first career bout outside the confines of World Extreme Cagefighting.

Burns to Replace Chonan at UFC 85

Iowa native Kevin Burns has been tapped to replace longtime PRIDE and DEEP veteran Ryo Chonan in his scheduled welterweight preliminary fight against Roan Carneiro at UFC 85: Bedlam next weekend in London, England according to our friends at MMA Junkie.

While the reason being Chonan’s withdrawal from the card are currently unknown, sources close to Burns have confirmed that the Glory Fighting Championships veteran has agreed to come in as a late replacement on the card.

Burns is currently riding a two-fight winning streak. He has won his last two fights by way of submission, most recently forcing Steve Schneider to tap out courtesy of a triangle choke in December of last year.